Microphone array technology has important and wide applications in the field of audio signal processing. Within a spatial range in which audio signal acquisition is required, a microphone array is constituted by multiple microphones deployed in different positions.
Compared with traditional audio signal acquisition by a single microphone, a sound pick-up range of the microphone array is much extended. Depending on the size of the microphone array, the pick-up range of the microphone array is extended from less than 0.5 meters of the traditional pick-up by a single microphone to several meters, or even dozens of meters. By use of signals acquired by multiple microphones, specific audio signals can be effectively enhanced in a noise environment so that a good noise suppression effect can be achieved; and a directional sound pick-up operation can be implemented and voices from audio signal sources in specific directions can be acquired; and sound sources can be positioned conveniently.
The mainstream microphone products in the current market include small-sized wired microphone arrays, small-sized wireless microphone arrays (mainly using Wi-Fi access) and suspended microphone arrays.
As shown in FIG. 1, most small-sized microphone arrays are desktop microphone arrays, wherein an audio mixer 101 is integrated with multiple microphones 102 and Wi-Fi device, and has a physical dimension generally less than 0.3 meter. The distances between the microphones 102 are small, and space diversity gains of the audio signal processing are limited; and the mixer 101 output may be connected to a terminal device such as an audio device 103 in a wired or wireless mode.
Proper increase in the distances between microphones may provide higher space diversity gains and a better directional sound pick-up effect due to the long wavelength of audio signals.
As shown in FIG. 2, a suspended microphone array is a microphone array product providing long distances between microphones, wherein microphones 202 suspended on the top 201 of a space (for example, a large meeting place) acquire specific audio signals in the space, the audio signals are inputted into a mixer 203 by specific cables to make signal processing, and then the output signals of the mixer 203 are transmitted into a speaker 205 through a signal line 204, and finally the speaker 205 outputs the acquired audio signals.
The connections between the microphones and the mixer of the mainstream products listed above are all wired. The small-sized integrated mode strongly limits the physical dimension of the microphone array, and thus limits the sound pick-up range and space diversity gains of the microphone array; also, the cable connection mode of the suspended microphone array with long distances between microphones increases the difficulty of microphone deployment, and the limited number of input ports of the mixer also limit the number of the deployed microphones, thereby restraining the physical coverage area of the microphone array in practical application.